Awaken
by Valiant Me
Summary: The love of that single mortal girl was everything to him: eternal in its transience, transcendent in its banality. Moments seemed precious in a way they never had before. Time became an enemy and night his deepest ally. But then Psyche a disobeyed him and dared to look at him in the light. A companion piece of sorts to my piece "Eros in Want of Psyche".
"Coward"

He'd been there less than a second, had had less than a second to come to terms with what he'd done before he was interrupted by a voice that sounded slightly amused.

Hermes. He should've known.

"I couldn't stay." He said morosely, willing himself to believe it.

"No of course you couldn't. Why stay with the mortal girl when she went and acted like the human that she is? They're all like rats you know, wheedlesome. One gets tired of them rather quickly."

His tone was only slightly sarcastic.

"It wasn't that." Eros replied with irritation.

"No? I never understood the appeal of mortal girls myself. Father quite ruins himself over them… Is it the smell? The fragility? "

"I don't want to talk about this." He spread his wings determined to get away from his weasel of an uncle.

"Of course you don't. " Hermes replied gleefully. "You're a coward."

"I'm not a coward!" Eros all but screamed with the petulance of a little boy. "I couldn't stay… as soon as mother found out…"

"She would go after your coveted little price? She still will… and she'll find her deliciously helpless too."

Hermes took a mocking little bow

"That is owing to you, oh great God of Love."

Fear intermingled with his fury. No, surely his mother wouldn't dare hurt Psyche… not if she thought he didn't want her anymore.

"Not if she thinks I abandoned her because I grew tired of her." He said with resolution.

"Which you did. " Hermes pointed out sardonically.

Eros whipped out his bow and darts.

"Stop that!"

A weary look replaced Hermes' cheeky smile. No god wanted to spend eternity hating those he loved or loving those he hated.

"Peace, nephew."

Eros sighed and sat on a nearby rock tossing aside the weapons his mother had fashioned for him. Hermes calmly floated next to him and put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

"What will become of your prize now, Eros?"

-"She's not…" Eros struggled for words in a manner very unbecoming of divinity. "I _love_ her. She's mine… And they way _she_ feels about me… that wasn't me. It wasn't _that_ …"

He looked at his tools with sudden uncontrollable loathing. It was him who struck the hearts of men with fancy and disgust, desire and repulsion. But not, he now realized, with love or even real hatred. His divine task was empty. Hollow.

He'd been meant to make Psyche fall in love with a horrible creature. He'd fallen in love with her instead. Claimed her for himself. Against her wishes, against Aphrodite's. The only time he'd ever gone against his mother's will, and the deepest transgression he could've possibly committed.

But what bliss had followed! The love of that single mortal girl was everything to him: eternal in its transience, transcendent in its banality. Moments seemed precious in a way they never had before. Time became an enemy and night his deepest ally.

Except Psyche didn't love him. Not really.

She was a fierce little creature full of questions and conditions. She didn't love him completely. Not the way he'd loved her from the first moment he saw her tied to a rock in that lonely mountain peak.

"Psyche will soon forget about me. " He heard himself say. "Human hearts are fickle and forgetful. I'll convince mother that I have no further interest in her and she will forgive me eventually…"

Hermes nodded. They sat in silence for a while until a sudden though occurred to the winged god.

"How long have you known?"

"Since the begging." Hermes replied nonchalantly. "I saw you take the princess."

"Did you tell Him?"

"I tell the allfather everything."

Eros turned to look at him with a horrified expression.

"Do you mean to tell me that She has known all along too?"

Hermes laughed.

"It was known to none but father and I. Zeus counseled silence. He understands you more than anybody."

Eros was slightly touched by the God of Thunder's sympathy. But he was reluctant to accept the comparison: the allfather came and went around the lands of men bedding women as he pleased.

Psyche was his wife. His _only_ wife, now and forever.

"That fervor will diminish in time, young one. I assure you." Interrupted a loud booming voice.

Eros watched in dismay as Zeus himself materialized next to them.

"But it is certainly to be appreciated." He added, clapping the mortified Eros on the back good-naturedly.

Eros fell to his knees.

"Forgive me, sire."

"No matter, dear boy. No matter." His grandfather replied beaming. "Go now to your mother, before she starts unleashing her fury on our human wards."

Eros bowed and departed quickly.

He expected Aphrodite to be livid. Furious. Rabid. He expected her not to speak to him for days, not to take notice of his presence except to hear to hear him say that he was quite done with the mortal creature. He expected to grovel for forgiveness.

He found her in a field, surrounded by dryads that braided her long blonde tresses while she hummed. The smugness of her smile confused him.

"I know everything, son." She said quite calmly.

"You don't seem angry." Eros took a seat next to her and the dryads blushed and giggled furiously. Aphrodite sent them away in annoyance.

"Merely disappointed."

"I don't care about her anymore mother. It was a passing folly. I am sorry."

Aphrodite smiled at him and caressed his hair with affection. Eros reflected morbidly on how easy the lie had sounded. How natural.

"Young boys must sow their wild oats." Aphrodite preened. "In any case, Psyche doesn't matter anymore. Not to you."

Eros winced. Of course it was only fair for her to expect this: Psyche shouldn't matter to any of them from the minute he vanished and left her all alone with the knowledge that she'd been married to the god of Love himself. But his mother's tone suggested something in its smugness.

The calmness with which she was facing him was unnatural: the goddess of Beauty seldom took well to people crossing her. Hers was a fury to behold (terrible and beautiful).

"Mother, what have you done? Did you harm her?"

Aphrodite sniffed primly

"What is it to you? I thought you were quite done with her."

"And so I am. " Eros said with some pains. "But I hardly think she deserves your cruelty. It was all me. I took her. I kept her. She had no part in it."

 _She didn't even love me_ … he added to himself, thinking back to Psyche's burning curiosity, her adamant insistence that she couldn't love him unless she knew his "soul". His love wasn't enough for her. She needed more.

Aphrodite said nothing and called the dryads back to her with feigned nonchalance.

"Mother?" He asked with increasing alarm.

"Go away now Eros. The sight of you distresses me and I don't mean to be distressed today."

Eros flew away in contempt.

He searched for Psyche desperately. He wanted, needed, to make sure she was alive, safe, whole.

The forest upon which their idyllic palace had stood was empty.

"It isn't for you to know anymore." He was startled by a voice nearby.

It was Demeter, green-robed and grave.

"Not after you abandoned her so cruelly, so gracelessly."

Her words pained him. It was everything to him to know whether Pysche was alive and well.

"If you cared so much you wouldn't have fled the instant you didn't have your way, child." Demeter said in a reprobatory manner.

"Am I a coward?" Eros said sinking to his knees in dejection. "I only wanted to… to protect her. Keep her safe from my mother."

"Distance and silence have never been the best way of protecting those whom we love, my dear." Demeter softened her voice.

"What choice did I have?" Eros said desperately. "She disobeyed my only command! She… she didn't love me. Not entirely."

To his surprise, Demeter laughed.

"Oh, Eros. You and Psyche were quite made for each other. Both remarkably stubborn yet remarkably unsure of yourselves. Psyche loved you, my dear. In a much better way you could've ever hoped. It was stupid of you to let her go so easily…"

Eros drove his head into his hands and pulled fistfuls of golden hair.

"She is mortal."

"A very brave one." Demeter said vehemently. "She sought out your mother on my advice."

Eros started up.

"What?" he asked with violent eyes. "Keeping her away from my mother was the whole point of my leaving her! And you send her to her into her hands on a silver platter?"

He prepared to set out, but Demeter remained unfazed.

"This was a while ago, child. Aphrodite and Psyche have seen each other already."

None of it made any sense. Why had his mother not mentioned it? A terrible feeling set in his stomach. Was Psyche dead?

"She's enjoying herself, your mother. Gods take rather too much pleasure in making mortals suffer with impossible tasks."

A whirlwind of thought crossed his mind. Psyche was not dead. She was alive. Working. Working _for_ him, to get to him.

Oh, his beautiful, fierce determined little wife.

Of course he set out to help her. He sent her ants, naiads, whatever he could to help with the impossible tasks his mother had assigned.

Aphrodite was incensed. Eros dared not approach Psyche directly lest the goddess changed her mind about the tasks and thought up a much more gruesome form of trial.

It seemed eternal though in human time it really wasn't very long. Psyche was diligent, determined and brave. Stubborn in a way Eros recognized, clever in a way he admired. She grew dearer to his heart each day.

Finally, Psyche had completed the last task: she came back from the Underworld with Queen Persephone's beauty locked in a box. Eros hovered near her, observing her without making himself known. Psyche was clearly considering opening the box and using some of the beauty on herself.

This was to be expected: it was the trap Aphrodite had set for her, betting on the weakness of the human soul before temptation. Psyche fingered the lid and the slammed it shut with a look of almost angry determination.

In that moment Eros _understood_. He understood everything. That she was beautiful (even in her current state of dishevelment) but that wasn't why he loved her. That he _hadn't_ loved her completely when he first beheld her tied to a rock in that lonely mountain peak. He had _grown_ to love her. He had learnt to love all of it: the curiosity and intensity, the questions and conditions, her shrewdness and her strength of mind.

Loving her, as he had, in the deep of night was not enough. Love needed Psyche.


End file.
